Tip 1: Choosing content for adsense ads

I keep sharing tips everyday with colleagues, friends and clients, and thought that it would actually be a good material for this blog. Instead of just keeping this blog as a log file, and writing only about things I come across and find interesting to blog about, I thought I could also post some daily tips about web development, web design or online marketing in general.

Here we go - the first tip is how to optimise your content for Google Adsense. You may want to control what content Adsense should base their results on. In the old days, you just had to hope that your page was semantically making sense, and that it would pick up the right keywords.

you can now specify which content you want to be used for the ads:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=23168

You may think - oh right, well, let's put " secured loan" as content and make £1 out of each click. Why not, but if your site is about gardening, it is not very likely that people will click very often on the links displayed by google about "secured loan".

On the other hand, it is very useful to optimise the revenue you make out of your ads.
1) GO to adwords
2) Select the topic of your page: "my topic"
3) Use the suggestion tool to check out what are the most expensive keywords for this topic
4) Stick these keywords in the google ad section of your page.

Forrester CEO and Web2.0

When the CEO of Forrester talks about Web2.0, it is worth the read.

1) engage with your customers:
Georges Colony recommends using a corporate blog to connect with customers.

2) make sure that your site is run effectively
- Do you use scenario design? A slick design is one thing. But does it make sense? Do designers goals is to meet specific objectives, and drive the user to purchase your services/products or is it just looking good without any purpose.

3) Do you use personas? Defining what people will do on your site, and how to ensure that you make it as easy as possible for them can be addressed through scenario design. but who are your customers. By building personas, you can then draft different scenarios according their profile, and address the specificities of each user.

3) Would you recommend this product or service to a friend or colleague?
This is the one question to ask in order to improve customers satisfaction and retention. Once your customer has purchased something from your site, capitalise on him/her, and turn your visitor in a promoter.

The conclusion of the article is "Great marketing + Great technology = the only way forward. ". I would have added an addtional section about how to drive traffic to your site. This article takes as granted that you have got people visiting your site. But a great site is also a site bringing in new visitors (SEO friendly, supporting affiliation strategies, etc .. ). Without visitors in the first place, this is a bit like making a great car but keeping it in the garage.